Object storage (also known as object-based storage) is known in the art. Object storage techniques or object-based storage systems or architectures are available, e.g., the online storage web service S3 offered by Amazon. Object Storage techniques may use a digital data storage architecture or platform that stores and manages data as objects or containers (e.g., buckets in S3). Object Storage is simpler than other architectures (e.g., file system) and offers advantages such as scalability and low cost.
In some object-based storage system, each object has a unique, string name, and an object (or part of the content in an object) can be retrieved using the object's name. Some object-based storage systems provide a listing service that provides a user with a list of objects in the object-based storage system.
As further known in the art, in some object-based storage systems, the content of, or data included in, an object stored in an object-based storage system cannot be modified while the object is stored in the object-based storage system. Accordingly, in order to modify a content object in an object-based storage system, the object may need to be read, modified and then written back to the object-based storage system.
Block storage systems (also referred to in the art as “random access storage systems”) such as disks or hard drives are known in the art. Generally, a block storage system enables accessing any location in the storage system. For example, using a numerical address (or logical address), any amount of data, in any address (or offset) in a random access storage system, e.g., a disk drive, can be written to, or read from.
Generally, in block storage systems, files are split into fixed, or evenly sized blocks of data, each block having its own address, typically, no other data (or metadata) is maintained for blocks in block storage systems. In contrast, an object-based storage system doesn't split files up into raw blocks of data. Instead, entire chunks of data are stored as objects that contain the data, metadata, and at least one unique identifier.